I can’t write. I’ve been struggling for a long time now. For like a year, I think. I’m out of practice, out of motivation, out of … something. I don’t know. I can’t get myself to write. I have thoughts, ideas, and want to write them out but I– just can’t. I can’t put the words onto the page.

It’s all stuck inside and I don’t know what to do.

I guess I really shouldn’t call myself a writer anymore. Writers write, even when they don’t want to.

I know all the advice is “just do it!” and “just write like 250 words! and then move on from there!”. But I can’t.

I can’t get it to come out. I start getting anxious and aggravated and it just isn’t worth it, so I move onto something else.

#whining.

I guess I’ll try to write at least a hundred words before I go to bed tonight.

I’ve been pretty quiet lately, huh? School. Work. More work. New work. You know. Life. Not much time for writing or reading. Unless its reading how packages work in SQL. Or how quicksorts work and how to make them in JAVA. #nerd.

Anywise, recently I took on another/new part time job (I had 3 at one point, wooh. I’m down to one and a halfish right now). It’s cashiering at one of the big box stores around the country. It isn’t awesome, but I’ve had worse jobs (collections is pretty much soul destroying). Hell, the most trouble I get (usually) is from people who want to buy alcohol and don’t have to show their ID or don’t have it. Sorry, company policy is that unless your hair is pure white and you’re bent over– I need to ask for your ID.

Anywise. Normally, even people aren’t that bad. Though, I did once get told not to “argue” with the customer when I said, “No, I think I charged you for four bags in total” (I accidentally charged for seven). When I wasn’t being argumentative at all, but whatever. I also had an old man tell me he had a dream about me (I’m 29-years-old, and routinely get asked if I’m like 21-years-old or younger). That was kinda skeevy.

Tonight, however. I had an incident that actually scared me. To the point that when I told my supervisor about it I was almost in tears. What strikes me about it now, after the fact, is the difference between my reaction and my male coworkers.

I had a man come through my lane who was obviously suffering from some sort of mental illness. From how he was acting I’m pretty sure he was hearing voices. Now, I try to be very empathetic to people suffering from mental illness– god knows I’d rather have people treat me kindly when my PTSD or my depression swarms me. However, when I first looked up at this man after finishing when another customer he had his stretched out in my direction and was making choking motions at me.

As soon as he saw I was looking he stopped, but he was hitting his hands and his wallet. He also would not respond to anything I said to him. I tried to smile and ask him: “How are you? Are you okay?” Got not response. “Do you need a bag tonight?” Nothing.

However, he was swearing under his breath. Cussing and saying things like, “I hate your fucking voice.” After he paid he walked off to the produce section shouted obscenities again before moving off toward the bananas.

Two coworkers were nearby and looked at it. And I told them, “Hey was he was talking to himself and he was really angry, and he was making choking motions at me.” And their responses were like, “Woah that guys weird.” Or to shake their head.

The man came back through my lane to buy some fruit and something else– that I don’t even remember now. I was concentrating on being non-threatening. Again, no response was given to anything and at the end of the transaction and muttered, “Don’t fucking talk to me.”

Now, and even then, I’m pretty sure that he wasn’t cussing at me. I have a feeling that the choking motion he was doing with his hand wasn’t even to me. But I was really scared. I’m all of 5’5″, and while I’m a fat woman– I’m not a strong woman. Here was this man obviously angry and he had made threatening motions in my direction. And my coworkers didn’t take it seriously.

I got headshakes and that’s it. By the time I got the attention of my supervisors the man was gone. Making me feel like I didn’t have back up. And also if that man needed help– well he won’t have been getting it from our store. Now that I’m out of the moment and I look back on it– I’m worried about the man.

He obviously needed some help. I’m a bit of ashamed of myself for being so afraid and not taking stronger action– telling one of my male coworkers to go *get* the manager. Or going myself.

At the same time I feel its very telling that my response was fear where as my coworkers (male) responses were to not take it seriously. I think that it says alot about a female’s point of view in our society to that of a male’s.

I swear I had a thesis when I started writing this, but I seem to have lost it somewhere. I’m also too tired to go back and edit– I’ll never post it if I do.

So I apologize for the all over the place of it.

In closing:

I think that men in America have the luxury to laugh off frightening things that women do not, and that women have to be more aggressive when we’re afraid– otherwise we don’t get taken seriously.

Review: I have to be honest I was prepared not to like this book. The male lead goes by “Lambo” and claims its like “Lamborghini”. I found that pretty eyeroll worthy. Add onto it that the female lead has what is called vaginismus (a painful contraction of the vagina that makes penetration painful or impossible)– turns out it is an actual thing! However, I wanted to find out if the hot-dog that was Lambo could fix Ainsley’s problem (that’s why they get together, she wants him to fix her vagina so she can have sex). By the time the problem either is or isn’t fixed it fell to the way side and the more interesting things about the characters drew me to the story.

Ainsley is also bipolar and struggles with herself. Lambo is her older brother’s best friend and they’re carrying on in private. How will Ainsley’s brother react when he finds out? How will Lam handle Ainsley’s depression? How will Ainsley handle being in an actual relationship?

Over all the characters is what kept me coming back. There were some technical writing problems that draw it down from a 5 to a 4 for me. There wasn’t always consistency to things. Sometimes thoughts would be in italics and sometimes they wouldn’t be. The way text messages were handled wasn’t always the same, as well.

However, I think that Elizabeth Brown created wonderful and nuanced characters and her books are definitely worth reading!

Synopsis: Kenna is a glassblower just about to do a big show, hoping to make a name for herself as an artist. Erion is an air elemental who sneaks into her bedroom one night while she’s sleeping having heard the call of her emerging fire element. Then there is Aiden, a fire elemental that wants to consume Kenna’s element before it can emerge and use it to power himself. Erion wants to protect Kenna from both Aiden and himself, but he can’t resist her.

Review: This is definitely romantic erotica. There is a lot of sex. A lot. I’d probably only be exaggerating a little to say that almost every other scene is a sex scene. For the most part, however, the sex seems pretty natural. There are a few funny parts of the story. And they did a good job of immediately making Aiden seem like a scumbag without being over the top about it. I’d say that Aiden’s characterization is what stuck out the most to me. There are few things in the book that were kind of puzzling and didn’t make much visual sense to me and I had a hard time figuring out. There is a point in the story where the authors describe two people “stepping out from behind the furnace” that just didn’t make much sense and I couldn’t picture in my head. There there is a scene where Kenna and Erion are having sex, and Erion looks up and sees that Aiden is watching them have sex and basically burning down Kenna’s workshop. Instead of Aiden either a) killing them, and or b) Erion stopping to fight with him, they continue to have sex. Which was a little bit puzzling to me.

The world itself seems relatively well thought out. It’s the first novel so there are a lot of questions left to be asked. But the writing was pretty good, and the characters were captivating enough.

Why you should get it: It’s free with Kindle Unlimited! You like sex. You life fire. You like stories about people with elemental powers. You want to get in on the ground floor for a new paranormal erotica series.

It has been a little while. I’m coming out of some rough times, but getting better. I’m starting to write again! As of today, in fact, with this post! Today I wanted to discuss the topic of “Soul Mates” or “The One True Love”.

To give you some background this was sparked from reading this article here on HuffPost. Go read it! (But don’t forget to come back!)

Kit Devigny could have loved rock guitarist Noah St. John. Their friendship burned with the promise of intense passion and searing tenderness…until the night Noah deliberately shattered her heart.

Noah knows he destroyed something precious the night he chose to betray Kit, but he’d rather she hate him than learn his darkest secret. All he has left is his music. It’s his saving grace, but it doesn’t silence the voices that keep him up at night. Chasing oblivion through endless one-night-stands, he earns a few hours’ sleep and his bad boy reputation.

When a media error sees Noah and Kit dubbed the new “it” couple, Kit discovers her chance at the role of a lifetime hinges on riding the media wave. Wanting—needing—to give Kit this, even if he can’t give her everything, Noah agrees to play the adoring boyfriend. Only the illusion is suddenly too real, too painful, too beautiful…and it may be too late for the redemption of Noah St. John.

——————-

Excerpt from ROCK REDEMPTION by
Nalini Singh

Kit groaned at the sound of her phone. Reaching out blindly toward the nightstand, she hurled mental curses upon herself for forgetting to turn it off so she could catch some uninterrupted sleep before her four-a.m. makeup call.
It’d be fun and great for her career, her agent had said when recommending Kit take the superhero flick. Coming off two serious and emotionally wrenching projects, Kit had taken Harper’s advice and jumped on board the high-budget, high-octane venture. Unfortunately, Harper had forgotten to mention the four hours it would take to put her into the head-to-toe makeup required for the role. Daily.
“What?” she snarled into the phone without checking to see who it was.
“Hey, Katie.”
Every cell in her body snapped wide awake. Lifting her eyelids, she just stared at the ceiling through gritty eyes. Her heart thumped, her throat moving convulsively as she swallowed. She hated that he could still do this to her, hated it, but her visceral response to Noah wasn’t something she could stop. She knew because she’d tried for the past two years and three months.
“Noah,” she said flatly. “Do you know what time it is?”
“Two fifteen,” he answered.
Kit should’ve hung up. God, he’d hurt her. So much. But there was something in his voice that had her sitting up. “Are you drunk?” One thing she knew about Noah: no matter his bad-boy rep, he was never wasted. He might give a good indication of it, but look closely and those dark gray eyes were always sober.
“Probably.” A silence, followed by, “I just wanted to hear your voice. Sorry for waking you.”
“Wait,” she said when he would’ve hung up. “Where are you?”
“Some dive.” He took a deep breath, released it in a harsh exhale. “I’m sorry for being an asshole. I wanted to tell you that. I don’t want to go without saying that.”
“Noah,” she said, a horrible feeling in her stomach. “Where exactly are you?”
“The Blue Flamingo Inn off Hollywood Boulevard. Far, far, far off.” He laughed, and it held no humor. “It has a neon sign of a blue—surprise!—flamingo that’s flashing right through my window. Looks like someone stole the curtains.”
Having already grabbed her laptop, which she’d left beside the bed after answering some e-mails before sleep claimed her, she found the Blue Flamingo Inn. But Noah was already gone, having said, “I love your voice, Kit,” in an oddly raw tone before hanging up.
He didn’t pick up when she called back.
“Damn it! Damn it!” She shoved aside the blanket under which she’d been buried, having turned the AC to ice-cold as she usually did at night. Shivering, she tugged on a pair of jeans and an old sweatshirt over the panties and tank top in which she’d gone to sleep.
Pulling her black hair into a rough ponytail to keep it out of her eyes, she ran through the house, phone in one pocket, credit card and driver’s license in the other. In the kitchen, she grabbed her keys off the counter and shoved her feet into the tennis shoes by the door that led to the garage.
She was in her car and on the way to the motel three minutes after Noah had hung up, mouth dry and an ugliness in her gut. “Please be okay, please be okay, please be okay,” she kept saying, the mantra doing nothing to calm her down, but at least it kept her mind focused.
She wanted to call Molly and Fox, or the others in the band, but no one was currently in the city. Schoolboy Choir had completed the final show in the band’s hugely successful tour just over two weeks earlier. Day after that, they’d all gone their separate ways to recharge and regroup.
“Much as I love these guys,” David had said with a grin that reached the dark gold of his eyes, “I’ve been looking at their ugly mugs daily for months. We need to go blow off some steam separately before we start snarling at each other.”
At the time, Kit had nodded in understanding, having had that same experience while working on location for long periods. Tonight, however, she wished the others were all here, not scattered across the country, because something was very wrong with Noah.
“Noah doesn’t do drugs,” she told herself as she drove as fast as she dared, not wanting to risk getting pulled over and further delayed. “He isn’t the kind to—” She couldn’t say it, couldn’t even think of Noah ending his life. “No,” she said firmly, her hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel. “Noah isn’t like that.”

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Psy-Changeling, Guild Hunter, and Rock Kiss series Nalini Singh usually writes about hot shapeshifters and dangerous angels. This time around, she decided to write about a beautiful, charismatic guitarist with a dark past. If you’re seeing a theme here, you’re not wrong.

Nalini lives and works in beautiful New Zealand, and is passionate about writing. If you’d like to explore her other books, you can find lots of excerpts on her website. Slave to Sensation is the first book in the Psy-Changeling series, while Angels’ Blood is the first book in the Guild Hunter series. Also, don’t forget to swing by the site to check out the special behind-the-scenes page for the Rock Kiss series, complete with photos of many of the locations used in the books.

STALK HER: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

REVIEW:

Five Stars! ALL STARS!

This will be a short review and I will expand later today but:

This series just gets better with each book. This one? It broke my heart and remade it seemed like every single chapter. Noah is such a beautifully broken character and Kit is so strong. This story is worth reading again and again.